Write Post

The process of entering your writing in WordPress is easy.

1. Login to your WordPress Administration Panel.
2. Click the tab for Write.
3. Start filling in the blanks.
4. When you are ready, click Publish.

That’s it. You expected more? Okay, we have more details below, but from here, you can probably figure it out for yourself.

WordPress has two post editing modes, basic and advanced. Typically, the basic mode is the default for writing new posts, but that can be changed with the When starting a post option in the Writing Options SubPanel of the Options Administration Panel. We will take you first through the basic post screen and then the advanced.

Your Drafts 

If you have posts you have written and saved as Drafts, they will be listed here. Click on the title link to open that posts’ Write Post edit screen, edit the post, and when you are ready, click Publish and it will be released to your site and to the world.

Title 

This is where you enter the title of your post. You can use any words or phrases. Avoid using the same title twice as that will cause problems. You can use commas, apostrophes, quotes, hypens/dashes, and other typical symbols in the post like “My Site - Here’s Lookin’ at You, Kid”. WordPress will clean it up for the link to the post, called the post-slug.

Discussion 

The Discussion section hosts two checkbox choices. One is for Allowing Comments and the other is for Allowing Pings. If Allowing Comments is unchecked, no one can post comments to this particular post. If Allowing Pings is unchecked, no one can post pingbacks or trackbacks to this particular post.

Post Password 

To keep this particular post private so that only those with the password can read it, enter a password here. Be sure and write it down somewhere safe.

Categories 

The list of categories on your site is found here. By default, the uncategorized category will be checked, unless you have already changed the name of that category. Check the categories and sub-categories the post belongs in and make sure to uncheck “uncategorized” if applicable.

Excerpt 

An Excerpt is a summary or brief teaser of your posts featured on the front page of your site as well as on the category, archives, and search non-single post pages. WordPress handles Post Excerpts in two ways. One is by an explicit excerpt and the other is through the use of the Quicktag button more. If you want to have a summary of the post show, rather than the first paragraph or so, write the summary of your post in the excerpt field.

Quicktags 

Quicktags are buttons right above the Post editing textarea box. These buttons produce HTML tags for bold, italic, image, link, lists, and more. Click on these to add their HTML tags and the tag will either be reproduced in the editing area or a window will pop-up asking you to fill in the details, and when you are done, the information will be in the editing area.

Post Editing Area 

The big blank box is where you enter your writing, links, links to images, and any information you want to display on your site is the Post Editing Textarea or editing box.

Save and Continue Editing 

Below the Post Editing textarea box are three buttons. The first one is Save and Continue Editing. If you would like to save the post to your database, but continue working on it, click this button. Below in the Preview screen, you will then see your post. Using this button, the post will not be published unless the Publish check box is checked below in the Post Status area.

Save 

In theory, clicking the Save button will save your post. But it is a conditional save. Using the Advanced Editing screen, if the option in the Post Status is set to Draft, your post will be saved as a Draft. If set to Publish, the post will be saved and published to your site. If set to Private, the post will be saved as a private post, accessible only by you, the user/author and not the public. Once you have clicked Save, the Write Post screen will clear and you will be ready to add another post.

Publish 

To publish your post to your site, click the Publish button.

Post Status 

In the Post Status section there are three choices. Draft, Publish, and Private. To save the post as a Draft, choose Draft. To publish the post when you click Save, then choose Publish. To keep the post private, choose Private.

Send Trackbacks To 

Trackbacks let other blogs know you’ve referenced one of their articles. To send trackbacks from this post, enter the URI or website addresses in the box, separating each one by a space.

Post Slug 

This is where WordPress will “clean up” your post title to create a link, if you are using Permalinks. The commas, quotes, apostrophes, and other non-HTML favorable characters are changed and a dash is put between each word. If your title is “My Site - Here’s Lookin’ at You, Kid”, it will be cleaned up to be “my-site-heres-lookin-at-you-kid” as the title. You can manually change this, maybe shortening it to “my-site-lookin-at-you-kid”.

Post Author 

This is where the author of the post’s name is chosen from a pull down list. Authors are added to your site by registering and through the Users and Authors panel.

Edit Time 

By default, at the time the post is saved, that will be the date and time of the post within the database. To change this, click the checkbox and change the date and time information. All posts dated in the future will not appear on the site until that time has passed. If you wish to write posts that will automatically appear on your schedule, set the date and time here.

Delete This Post 

If you decide to Delete this post forever, click this button. It will ask “Are you sure?” to give you a second chance to reconsider.

Custom Fields 

Custom Fields offer a way to add information to your site. In conjunction with extra code in your template files or plugins, Custom Fields can modify the way a post is displayed. These are primarily used by plugins, but you can manually edit that information in this section.

At the very bottom of your Write Post screen is a buried treasure feature of WordPress that is a powerful tool. The WordPress Press It bookmarklet is a bit of Javascript you can click and drag to your browser link bar. Just put your mouse over the link, press down on the left button and, without letting go, drag it to the top menu bar of your browser (most browsers) where the “Link Toolbar” resides and release it. It will add a link that says “Press It” and the name of your WordPress site.

When visiting a web page that has information you would like to share with your WordPress site users, click the Press It link and a window will pop-up. If you are not logged into your site, the login will appear. If you are, it will automatically bring up the Write Post screen with the link to the site you are currently viewing already set in the Post Editing box and the title of the site in your post Title box. You can write more information about the site, change the title, set the categories, and when you are ready, choose Save as Draft, Save as Private, and Publish. Choose Publish and your post is published to your site, ready for the world to see and read. Simple and easy.

Excerpts vs More 

If you have changed the index.php template file to display the Excerpt instead of the full Content of a post, WordPress will automatically use the first 120 words of your post as the Excerpt or up until the use of the More Quicktag mark. If you use an Explicit Excerpt, this will be used no matter what.

Practice Accessibility 

To be compliant with web standards for accessibility, be sure to include ALT and TITLE descriptions on links and images to help your users, such as WordPress Codex.

Use Paragraphs 

No one likes to read writing that never pauses for a line break. To break your writing up into paragraphs, use double spaces between your paragraphs. WordPress will automatically detect these and insert HTML paragraph tags into your writing.

Using Headings 

If you are writing long posts, break up the sections by using headings, small titles to highlight a change of subject. In HTML, headings are set by the use of h1, h2, h3, h4, and so on. By default, most WordPress Themes use the first, second, and sometimes third heading levels within the site. You can use h4 to set your own headings. Simply type in:

Subtitle of Section

with double lines before and after and WordPress will make that title a headline in your post. To style the heading, add it to your style.css style sheet file. For more information on styling headings, check out Designing Headings.

Use HTML 

You don’t have to use HTML when writing your posts. WordPress will automatically add it to your site, but if you do want control over different elements like boxes, headings, and other additional containers or elements, use HTML.

Spell Check and Proof 

There are spell check Plugins available, but even those can’t check for everything. Some serious writers will write their posts in a text editor with spell check, check all the spelling and proof it thoroughly before copying and pasting into WordPress.

Think Before You Post 

Ranting on blogs is commonplace today, but take a moment and think about what you are writing. Remember, once it is out there, it can be seen by many and crawled by search engines; and taking things back is harder once it is public. Take a moment to read what you’ve written before hitting the Publish button. When you are ready, share it with the world.